Donna Stone walked into the town square wishing for better timing and a good bowl of soup. It was close to Longest Night, though she hadn't gotten a look at the stars in several days of wet fog and drizzle, punctuated by the occasional stinging downpour. She'd begun her walk home under a burning desert sun in high summer, and with three fourths of the distance passed on her map, it was the time of year when snow would be falling in the mountains that ringed her homeland.

But in these hills, it was just endless wet chill. The smell of smoking meat had lured Donna from the merchant road onto a sheep trail, a track of loose gravel and mud that descended into a sheltered valley and a tiny village.

Fog shrouded the houses with their stone walls and wood shingle roofs, and Donna followed the sounds of murmuring voices to the village common where she walked right into trouble.

A hundred people, maybe more, were herded into the center of the town square by the fountain. A cluster of armored horsemen glared down the shafts of spears and axes. More armed men patrolled on foot and a pairs of them were posted as guards at the four roads leading into the square.

Donna knew a shakedown when she saw one. She'd heard plenty of stories these last few weeks of travel. With the winter closing in, the wars to the south were on hold. Even where it doesn't snow, nobody wants to slog their armies through endless mud. Better to wait until after the rains let up. But no one wants to pay mercenaries to sit around and do nothing either. And with all of the conscription that had been going on, villages were vulnerable, as many of their own fighting men had yet to return from the wars.

Donna was a mercenary herself. She knew winter. If you drank through your pay in the first week off, then you had a cold and damp season to look forward to with few chances for paying work. Too many men gave in to the temptation to simply take what they wanted by force, and to band together in the hopes of more loot.

Donna emerged from the fog, too close to avoid being seen. She wasn't sure she would have bothered trying to avoid the mess if she could have. She was too tired, too wet, and too cold. Donna wanted her bowl of soup.

One of the guards dismounted and approached her, making some noise about getting over with the rest of the peasants. Donna glared at him and he stopped short. Smarter than most, she thought. Donna usually had to fight two or three before they took her seriously.

This man was small and lean, and he'd gotten close enough to Donna before he stopped that she could smell the beer and puke on him. He probably hadn't been eating well before tonight.

He looked up at Donna. She was six feet and then some, and she probably had a hundred and fifty pounds on the guard. That threw people off more than the fact that she was a woman sometimes.

But the leader recognized her, or at least he knew her by reputation.

"Donna Stone, the demoness of Dracairne." He dismounted and stepped past his soldier to meet her. This man wasn't going to be intimidated. He matched her height and he was solid muscle clad in heavy armor that his frame carried easily.

"I haven't heard that nickname," Donna replied. "The battle of Dracairne was a mess and I spent most of it in a ditch ducking arrows. Were you there?"

"I try to be more selective in my causes. That one was hopeless."

"We won," Donna pointed out.

"You bought time, but the city may still fall in the Spring. That's the way I heard it, anyway. What brings you here, Stone?"

"The merchant road, and the smell of a hot meal," Donna said.

The townsfolk were watching the exchange intently. This was a routine to them, Donna realized, and tonight was the first break they'd had in it for some time.

"I'm Jeth Holt. Commander Holt. I've got a good band of fighting men here. They're strong and they're hungry for a fight, but they're undisciplined. You whipped that rabble into shape at Dracairne. Turned them into a capable force. I need a lieutenant who could help me do that with my men."

He was worried. That was a good sign. Donna liked it when she made men nervous. He had the numbers on his side, but he didn't trust them.

"Oh, we're just doing our part to keep the region free of bandits. You know how it goes in the winter."

Donna knew. She glared at Holt, unsmiling, eyes steady.

"Hey, I give them every chance to handle the job themselves," he said. "I've got a standing offer. Anyone wants to fight me for the position, I'll even give them a week to prepare."

Donna went for her knife. "Why wait?" she hissed.

Holt's hands went to his shoulders, and Donna got the knife out and closed half of the distance to his gut. People tended to underestimate Donna's speed, because they focus on her size. Sure, she wasn't going win a foot race, but she'd trained her hands to be fast. This time, though, it was Donna who underestimated Holt. She'd been counting on him going for his sword.

Instead, he went for a pair of fighting sticks in a shoulder harness, and he struck three blows in a blur of motion. He hit her wrist, a stinging blow to seize up her hand and get her to drop the knife. But she clenched her fist to lock her grip as the blow landed.

The next two strikes hit her thigh and she had to shift her weight to her back foot. Donna was still standing, and Holt looked impressed by that, but her hand and her leg were barely functional. This fight was going bad quickly, and Donna hadn't even put a scratch on Holt.

But just like the villagers, Holt was lulled into his own routine.

He stepped back, twirled the fighting sticks into a guard position, and gave a quick bow.

"One week, Donna Stone. I hope you'll put up a bit of a fight when I return."

He turned his back to her and walked to his horse. Donna considered taking the knife in her left hand and throwing it into his back, but she didn't like her odds. He had too much armor, and too many men eager to prove their worth if she only wounded him.

She watched him gather up his men, willing herself to stand steady and ignore the pain shooting up and down her arm and her leg.

Holt rounded up his bandits and they rode off into the fog, shoving and knocking down a few nearby villagers just to get in a last laugh or two.

Then the villagers started to disappear into the fog as well.

Donna expected as much. She could probably get back to the merchant road before Holt managed to put together a party to track her down. If he really pushed the pursuit, she might have to leave a body or two in her path to discourage him, but she was confident she could be done with Holt if she wanted to.

She didn't want to.

She slowly shifted her weight onto the bruised leg. It held her. She'd be walking with a limp, at least until she rested it overnight, but no lasting damage done.

Donna tried taking a step and a hand gripped her arm to steady her.

She looked down to find a slightly-built old woman.

"I've got a bed and a warm fire. My name is Clarette. You are welcome in my home, Donna Stone."

Donna turned and made the best formal bow she could manage while making sure she kept her footing.

Some of the other villagers gathered close now. Not all of them, but enough.

Enough to plan.

Donna straightened up and spoke loudly.

"I'm not running away. In one week's time, I'll fight Jeth Holt and I'll win. I'm Donna Stone, the warrior woman, the Demoness of Dracairne. And I'll train for this week with secret techniques I've learned in distant lands, and when Holt returns, he'll regret the day he ever set foot in…"

"Glaston." A girl supplied the name of the village. She looked doubtful, but Donna thought there was a tiny spark of hope in her eyes.

Donna had to complete the bargain. A service offered, a price asked. Bandits, farmers, soldiers. They were all creatures of routine.

"I will fight him for you in a week's time." Donna looked around at the faces gathered near. "For the price of…"

She hesitated for a moment because she had not actually thought this through. Then she remembered what she wanted. The only thing she wanted.

"For the price of a warm bed for this week, and a hot bowl of soup every night."

**********

Donna awoke on the first day, with pain in her back from Clarette's too-small bed. The stone-walled cottage didn’t have much room, and Donna had to duck to avoid the ceiling beams.

Donna had awoken with the dawn as she was accustomed to, and she found Clarette up and dressed, chopping turnips by the stove.

"Not a thing," Donna replied as she laced up her boots. "Oh, except if you can spare a stout stick. A staff will have better reach than a knife against those fighting sticks that Holt uses."

Clarette pointed Donna toward the shed, and Donna rummaged through dozens of broom handles and rakes until she found a staff with the right weight and balance.

She bid Clarette good day as Clarette put the turnips into a pot of water to boil, and she made her way back to the village square.

Donna didn't intend to hide what she was doing. Many of the villagers had slipped away before they heard her promise to take on Jeth Holt, and if she was going to put her life on the line in exchange for lodging and soup, Donna was at least determined that the townsfolk were going to see her doing it.

Donna started out with staff exercises. The staff would certainly be a better weapon than a knife against Holt's fighting sticks, but Donna had also chosen it because the staff exercises she knew were good for stretching out tight muscles. Donna worked at half-speed. Footwork, then blocks, then strikes and spins. The deep bruises in her thigh and her forearm still ached, but the sore muscles from the night on the cramped bed loosened up, and she began to grow more comfortable with the fighting movements. The body could get locked into a routine too. Donna knew this, and she knew she'd gotten too much into the routine of walking these last few weeks.

She worked at an easy pace, taking rests when she needed to. The sun came out after an hour, and Donna noticed someone watching her. It was the girl who'd spoken to her the night before. She was in her teens, slender and wiry. She sat on the steps of the little public house that faced the town square and she watched as Donna switched from staff work to practicing hand-to-hand techniques.

When she stopped to rest, the girl walked over to her.

"Thank you," she said.

Donna shook her head. "Don't thank me now. I still don't know if I can take the guy."

"We should all be thanking you just for trying. No one else has even tried."

"Fear is what men like Jeth Holt are good at," Donna said. "Unfortunately, sometimes they're good a fighting too. But I'm also good at fighting. And besides, I know secret techniques from fighting masters in far lands."

The girl smiled.

"Is there anything you need?" she asked. "My father owns the tavern."

Donna made a show of looking around her.

"You know, there is one thing I could use. Clarette was kind enough to loan me this staff, and all I need to practice with it is some open space. But I can tell that Jeth Holt is a dirty fighter. Once I get those sticks away from him, it may come down to hand-to-hand. And practicing those techniques is best done with a fighting partner."

The girl looked back at the tavern. "I can ask if someone would…"

"What's your name?" Donna asked.

"Me? I'm Glenna. But… Jeth Holt is a lot bigger and stronger than I am."

"I'm a lot bigger and stronger than you are too," Donna said. "Let me show you how you throw someone bigger and stronger than you. Then we can practice."

Donna practiced letting Glenna throw her around all afternoon.

When she returned to Clarette's cottage that night, she got a bowl of the best turnip soup she'd ever tasted.

**********

Glenna was waiting for Donna in the town square the next morning with two young men.

"This is Lars," Glenna introduced the taller boy. "Last night at the tavern there was, well… Lars, you explain…"

"Well, Ma'am. People had been drinking and one thing got to another and a fight broke out and…"

"This big man knocked Lars down and I got between them and…"

"He took a swing at Glenna and she ducked and threw him! Landed him on a heap of chairs." Lars looked at Glenna in amazement.

"Oh, that." Donna smiled. "That's what I meant about routine. Practice it enough and it sticks. You were lucky, Glenna. He must have come after you just like we practiced. I only had time to show you a couple of moves. I'm glad I taught you one that helped."

"Lars and his cousin want to know if they could practice with us," Glenna said.

Donna walked a short distance away. "All right. I need to get my practice in, and better to practice with a choice of opponents. Glenna, you come at me and I'll run through the techniques for your friends."

They practiced all morning.

At noon, Glenna went into the tavern and returned with bread and cheese, and they sat and ate and rested.

"Do you really think you can win?" Lars asked Donna.

"You never really know with these things." Donna spoke between bites of crusty bread.

"Well, we believe you can," Lars assured Donna. Getting tossed around by Donna and Glenna had apparently given him new appreciation for Donna's fighting skills. "Is there anything else we can do to help you get ready?"

"Do you know where you get the stones for your walls and chimneys?" Donna asked.

"Sure," Lars said. "The quarry is pretty close by. You just follow the creek that feeds the mill pond. What do you need rocks for?"

"Strength exercises. My family are stoneworkers. I was always big, but I got strong hauling rocks with my brothers."

That afternoon, the four of them set out with picks and baskets.

"Will you really get stronger in just a few days?" Glenna asked. She seemed skeptical of the whole idea and was wishing they could get back to learning fighting.

"It's part of the ritual," Donna assured her.

"Ritual? You're doing magic now?"

"A kind of magic. Mostly it's just about routines. Sticking to routines that work and breaking routines that don't. If I know I have to fight and I have time, I do strength exercises."

Donna showed them some simple exercises, practicing punching and blocking while holding fist-sized rocks, and then she started filling a basket with rocks of the same size.

"Hauling baskets of them strengthens the whole body," Donna explained.

The others joined in and they struggled back to town and deposited four baskets of rocks on the edge of the town square.

"What now?" Glenna asked.

"Rest, and then one more run to the quarry."

Glenna wasn't happy to hear that, but she went along with it.

When they returned a second time, three more lads and one girl were waiting in the town square to ask if Donna would be teaching fighting again.

They all practiced until sunset and when Donna returned to Clarette's cottage, she found a hot bowl of barley soup in beef broth with carrots waiting for her.

It was the best she'd ever had.

**********

Donna had a dozen partners to choose from the next morning. Since she couldn't spar with all of them at once, she paired them off, with the boys and girls from the previous day showing some basic techniques to the newcomers. There were older men joining in this time, and a couple of matronly women as well.

After practicing for most of the morning, a grey-haired man who'd been watching from the sidelines approached Donna.

"Well I hope you kill that bastard Holt, but I still don't give you much chance. I've seen too many times when courage, sticks, and stones go up against good weapons and armor. Weapons and armor win."

Donna shrugged. "I've got to work with what I have."

Glenna's grandfather reached into the bag that was hooked to his belt and removed a ten-inch steel spearhead.

"Thought maybe you could rig up something. I had it in an old box from my soldier days."

Donna looked it over. "Good steel, but the weight doesn't feel right, and I'd have to find a shaft for it. Clarette has a bunch of poles and staves in her shed. Did any of your friends serve in the war with you? Maybe they have some more of these blades. Between those and the different shafts I might be able to put together a passable weapon."

Glenna's grandfather went to ask around, and that afternoon, Donna sat down with a bundle of staves and a bag of about twenty spearheads in various states of rust. She cleaned them and matched them up and soon had fifteen working weapons to choose from.

When she walked back out onto the village square to practice her spear drills, she found she had well over fourteen partners. She had the ones who didn't have spears go and get staves and sharpen one end, and she drilled spear techniques until sunset.

Clarette served a bowl of potato cream soup that night that was the best Donna had ever had.

**********

"Ethan, could you help me?" Donna walked over to the edge of the square where Glenna's grandfather watched along with a growing crowd of the town's elders.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed," the tavern keeper said.

Donna had formed her training volunteers into two lines and equipped them with a mix of weapons. They'd come at her with clubs, staves, spears, and fists, and she'd thrown or disarmed them in turn. She ran the practice at half-speed, but Ethan watched as the pacing crept up until Donna was essentially facing real attacks by time she finally called a halt.

"Don't tell me that people are starting to think I might win?" Donna laughed.

"Some of us are. What can I do to help?"

Donna turned and pointed to the crowd.

"This is wonderful," Donna said, "But I need to make sure I'm getting the most out of my training. Jeth Holt is strong and he's fast, and he's skilled. Everyone wants their turn practicing with me, but I need to pick a few of the strongest and fastest and focus on pairing up with them. Everyone who's been coming here has been so enthusiastic about helping me get ready that I don't want to just send them home. So I was wondering if you could help me give them a way to be useful."

"I guess I could help. What, exactly did you have in mind?"

"You spent some time as a soldier?"

Ethan looked away. "That was a long time ago."

Donna put an arm around the older man's shoulder. "But not so long that you've forgotten, right? Look, I just need you to keep them involved. They've got all of these spears and staves. Go through some basic formation drills with them. They want to know how to use their weapons, and I don't have time to work with them all one-on-one, but one man can show them how to work together."

Donna returned to the group and selected ten of the strongest men who had joined the practice, and then called Lars and Glenna over.

"Me?" Glenna asked.

"You've been at this the longest. I need to go up against skill as well as strength," Donna said. "Besides, we're going to keep improving our strength, starting right now."

Glenna groaned as Donna walked over to the rock baskets, picked one up and headed down the path to the quarry. The dozen chosen fighting partners, Glenna included, picked up their own baskets and fell into line behind Donna while Ethan got the rest of the volunteers lined up in rows.

Donna worked on hand-to-hand fighting with her twelve well into the night.

When she got back to the cottage, there was spicy bean soup on the woodstove, and it was the best Donna had ever tasted.

**********

Glenna struggled with the weight of her rock basket as she followed Donna along the path back from the quarry.

"Donna! Wait!" She moved to drop the load, but then thought better of it and placed it down carefully.

Donna stopped and turned. She didn't put her load down.

They stood there for a moment. Donna wanted to do one trip to the quarry after a full day of training.

"You aren't going to leave us," Glenna said.

Donna shook her head. "Yes, I am. But not today or tomorrow. Not until after Jeth Holt has been has been dealt with. Did you think I was going to walk away from this before it was done?"

"No! Of course not! I…" She stood where she was and looked down at the path. "Yes. I don't see what we've done to make this worthwhile for you. You're risking your life, and for what? Some soup? It would be too easy to just walk away. Anyone could choose that."

"I won't." Donna still held the basket of rocks on her shoulder.

"All right," Glenna said. "Then I know something that could help you."

Donna put down her load of rocks and followed as Glenna led her into the woods.

"Lars found this when he was hunting." Glenna stood with Donna on a hillside looking over a mud-filled depression.

"This was a swamp at the end of summer," Glenna said. " Jeth Holt led one faction of the mercenaries. He had a rival for leadership, and he settled matters by leading his rival and those loyal to him into an ambush crossing the swamp. The dead men sank in the muck and the swamp turned into a pond when the winter rains came."

Donna looked down on the mud. "But it's been raining almost nonstop. Why isn't this under water?"

"There was a dam of rocks and logs. It gave way a few days ago and the water flooded into the creek. Lars found it like this, with the bones of the dead mercenaries exposed in the mud."

Donna understood. "Weapons and armor. It's ghoulish, but I'd rather borrow from the dead than join them."

But after an hour of digging, Donna had only managed to find a set of forearm guards that fit her and a lightweight cavalry sword. They'd excavated a small pile of other weapons and armor, which they'd put aside. Nothing else fit Donna.

"Maybe something can be hammered into shape," Donna said.

"There's more down there. We should bring more people to dig," Glenna suggested.

"I need to get back to training," Donna said. "Let's haul back what we can now."

They each took a bundle.

As they neared the village, they encountered Clarette gathering wild mushrooms in a basket for Donna's soup that night.

Donna smiled in anticipation.

**********

Donna blocked a high thrust, and reversed her grip on her staff as she stepped back. She was giving ground and her opponent pressed the attack. Another block, then a quick sidestep. People didn't expect a woman the size of Donna to sidestep anything.

Donna jabbed the end of the staff into Glenna's ribs, just a touch, but enough to make her lower her guard, and then Donna was in close with her staff pressed against the side of Glenna's neck and Glenna signaled to concede the match.

"You are very good at this," Donna said.

"I keep losing." Glenna stepped back into her guard stance.

"So did I. For a lot longer than you will. The staff and I took a long time to get along. I kept wanting to throw it on the ground and wrestle. Of course, if I tried that, my opponent still had a staff. It almost never ended well."

It was the last day of training. Donna had chosen Glenna to stay and spar with her. The other eleven of her main fighting partners were making a last trip out to scavenge weapons and armor from the swamp. There still wasn't enough to make Donna a really effective suit of armor, but the village blacksmith had promised to cobble together what he could work with while the rest of the weapons and armor that were uncovered went to the villagers helping with the training. He'd promised to work all night.

As Donna got set to finish up the day's training, Ethan handed her a small bottle.

"This is the strong stuff. I managed to hide it from Holt and his thugs. Used to call this liquid courage."

Donna took it from him.

"Is there anything else you need?" he asked.

"Maybe one more thing. A blessing. Do you have a priest in the village?"

Ethan shook his head. "My cousin Albus is the speaker when someone dies. But he's not officially a priest of anything."

"He'll do," Donna said.

Ethan turned toward the spectators, pointing to a bald man with a beard that was red-brown streaked with grey. Donna caught Ethan by the shoulder.

"Tomorrow," Donna said. "Blessings can wait for tomorrow. Tonight is for soup and sleep."

Ethan smiled. "Clarette told me she made her pea soup tonight. That's one of her best."

And it was.

**********

Donna considered allowing herself a bit of extra time to sleep in the morning, but her body was used to waking with the dawn, and the bed really wasn't that comfortable. She'd be better rested from walking and light exercise than from staying crammed on the small bedframe. Clarette had a breakfast of smoked meat and rolls prepared, and Donna ate a small amount. She didn't know when to expect Commander Holt, so she wanted to be ready at any time.

She opened the cottage door to find the air clear and the sky blue. It was cold, but dry.

She strolled into town and found the square already crowded and bustling with activity. Firepits had been dug, and large pots were being set to boil while Ethan was supervising a group of cooks who were busy husking corn and chopping potatoes.

"Expecting to celebrate?" Dona asked.

"The last portion of our payment. If you win, there will be enough soup for everyone."

"And if I lose?" Donna asked.

"Then I'll piss in it myself before I serve it to Jeth Holt."

Donna smiled and waved to Glenna, who was practicing fighting with Lars and some of the other boys and girls of the village.

Then she looked for Albus the village holy man.

"May we talk a bit?" Donna asked.

"Oh, of course. Ethan told me you'd want to speak with me. He told you that I'm not an ordained priest, right?" The man looked unsure if he wanted to lead Donna somewhere more private or have the conversation right where they were.

Donna chose for him.

"Walk with me," she said, then turning to Ethan she called out, "We're walking the path to the quarry. Send Glenna for me if Commander Holt shows his face before we return!"

As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Donna handed Albus the small bottle Ethan had given her. Liquid courage. She hoped it lived up to that.

"An offering. Take one swig now," Donna said.

Albus' eyes lit up and he drank deeply.

"What god do you worship, Albus?"

"Any and all of them. When we need a prayer said here, people turn to me, whether it's to Kel Sunspark to raise up the crops, or to Alaendra of the Mists to guide the dead on their way."

"I worship Mantek the Lawgiver," Donna said. "Because in addition to giving people laws so that they could live together as civilized folk, Mantek also gave us discipline and routine and ritual."

"Some people were saying this is all a magic ritual to defeat Commander Jeth Holt," Albus said.

"Oh, it is," said Donna. "Seven nights, seven bowls of soup. And now we are going to pray to Mantek seven times, and we are going to drink seven times from this bottle."

Donna put the bottle to her lips seven times, but only drank after the last prayer. The liquor probably wouldn't have lasted otherwise. When they were finished, only a few drops remained. She poured it out as a libation to Mantek and to whatever gods might help.

"It's time to go back," Donna said, "but I want you to say a prayer for Glaston when we return. I want you to pray in front of everyone who has been kind enough to come and watch me practice, everyone who has come today to see Jeth Holt dealt with once and for all."

"What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"Well," Donna said, "think of everything that Holt has done to your village while we walk back. I'm sure you'll think of something to say."

Donna quickly filled her bag of fist-sized rocks from the quarry and they walked back to the village in silence.

Ethan met Donna at the edge of the crowd.

"Holt and his men have been seen on the merchant road. They'll be here soon."

Donna nodded. "Good. Albus will lead us in prayer."

It wasn't a prayer.

Albus recounted every injustice, every hurt inflicted on the villagers. His voice started out low, but rose to a frenzied pitch as he demanded to know how the gods could have let this happen, how the people of Glaston could have let this happen.

"Liquid courage, indeed," Donna whispered to herself as she watched her ritual come to fruition.

Men and women were taking up spears and staves, strapping on bits of armor from the pile that had been left in the town square. Boys and girls were taking rocks from the piles where full baskets had been emptied.

Donna saw Lars directing some of the younger children to climb up onto the roofs of cottages.

Some villagers lit torches from the fires that were heating the soup kettles.

Donna saw Ethan running to the crowd standing with the spears and staves. He was yelling, "No, no! In line! Like we practiced!"

"There they are!" some called out.

The villagers of Glaston had spent a week breaking out of their routine.

Holt's bandits were still stuck in a routine of their own. And that routine definitely did not involve facing down an armed militia.

Holt stopped in his tracks, and he took a moment too long to decide between ordering attack or retreat.

Donna didn't hear what he did finally order, because it was lost in the screams of villagers on the roofs of every house in the lane. The yells were accompanied by a hail of fist-sized rocks.

Donna had noticed a lack of discipline in Holt's soldiers. Their horses, it turned out, weren't very disciplined either.

Horses threw riders. Men charged at the cottages and were met with more rocks. Baskets of rocks were dumped down on them. Donna had done a lot of her strength training in the last seven days, and all of her helpers had done a lot more.

The cottages were solidly built, and even though the village looked vulnerable to attack, it proved to be better tactical ground than Holt had ever considered.

When Ethan ordered the spearmen to charge, they came up fast on Holt's scattered mercenaries and wheeled to trap a small group of them against the stone walls of the

public house while a contingent of them spun to guard the flanks. Donna jogged forward to position herself in the ranks as Ethan barked out orders again and they moved on another small group of the mercenaries.

By the time Commander Holt managed to get any significant number of his forces regrouped, a fourth of his men were already down.

Holt probably still could have gotten away with most of his force. But he was as much a creature of routine as any of his men. He didn't believe what he was facing, so he ordered his men to attack. The ranks of the villagers buckled as some of the mercenaries broke through their front line, but the numbers caught up with the mercenaries at that point.

Across the fighting, Donna spotted Holt. He wasn't bothering with the fighting sticks, and he had a space of a few paces around him as the villagers kept clear of his sword.

Donna set her spear.

"Bad idea, giving me my choice of weapon," Donna said. "But at least now you know a little more about what went on at Dracairne."

Holt stalked toward Donna, but he never got there. Lars hit him first, ducking under his blade to slam into the back of his legs. Holt kicked and pulled his boot free when Lars tried to hold on, but he was still off balance as he tried to regain his feet. Glenna pulled him into a throw, and Holt went down hard in the dirt, and the villagers swarmed him.

That was all it took. The mercenaries who weren't dead, hurt, or trapped fled for the hills.

**********

"You're leaving." Glenna found Donna by the quarry path, well away from the celebration.

Donna nodded. "I said I'd leave after Jeth Holt was dealt with."

"You never got to fight him," Glenna said.

"Well, I told you I was going to use magic."

Glenna shook her head. "And you’re not even staying for your soup."

"I'm not," Donna said. "But you should go have some. It will be the best you've ever tasted. I promise."

Rick Silva has been involved in small press publishing since his college days. He published and edited Kinships magazine. Along with his wife Gynn, Rick is a partner in Dandelion Studios (dandelionstudios.com), a small press comic book company. Rick co-writes the Dandelion Studios comics Zephyr & Reginald: Minions for Hire, Stone, Kaeli & Rebecca, and Perils of Picorna. His prose short stories have been published in anthologies by Apex, Flying Pen Press, and Crossed Genres, and he was a featured contributor for the fiction webzine The Edge of Propinquity. Rick Silva grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, attended Cornell University, and currently teaches chemistry at a high school on Cape Cod, where he resides with his wife and son, and three cats.

Two great polished mirrors faced each other across the stone space of Odin's hall. Stood between them, his face repeated again and again in the silvered surfaces, Thorvald was reminded of the priest at the entrance.

'Within Odin's hall,' the priest had said as he placed Thorvald's sword on the altar, 'you will face yourself over and over again. Every you that could have been will be seen by our lord. Only if you are the most heroic, the most fearless, the greatest that you could be, only then will you be chosen for Ragnarok.'

Now, as he stood between the mirrors, surrounded by his other selves, Thorvald wondered if he was the greatest he could be. Surely not. If he was the greatest he would have fought on, and his warband with him. Perhaps they would have retreated to the forests and harrassed the invaders from there. Perhaps they would have taken to the long boats, raiding the coast like their ancestors had. Perhaps they would have charged the foe head on one final time, screaming their battle cries to the last.

But then, who could fight the gods themselves?

Thorvald looked in the mirror, wondering which of the thousands of faces had fled to the forests, which had gone to sea. Would he look different after feeling the salt spray on his scars, the wild wind blowing his beard? He could not tell how different each face was from his own. Were they different at all, or was this his one true and only face?

Other things also showed in the mirrors. The sides of Odin's elaborately carved throne, angular, square-edged serpents writhing up its sides. They did not flow as they did in the carvings of his people, but twisted at sharp angles, from the pointed tips of their tails to their flat nosed heads and jagged teeth. Behind the throne was a purple curtain, and it twitched for a moment, then was swept aside as Odin himself stepped into the room.

The Aesir was as magnificent as Thorvald had imagined. His footsteps shook the floor as he ascended the dais to his throne. His shoulders were wide as the mightiest warrior, draped with chainmail and furs. His all concealing helmet, with a hole for only one eye, was carved with scenes of hunting and battle, encrusted with flat blue gems that shimmered as he tilted his head. A long dark beard flowed from beneath the helmet, running almost to his waist. In his hand he held the spear Gungir, ten feet long and viciously barbed.

His magnificence was all the greater by comparison with the men who followed him round the throne, ledgers in hand, quills at the ready. The Aesir's servants from across the great ocean with their pale brown skin, their coal black eyes and their feather fringed clothes. They all seemed obsessed with writing, from the guard keeping tally at the city's gate to the scribe at the guest hall recording everyone's name. Three times on the way into the palace Thorvald had given details to some scribbler on parchment, never an account of his heroic deeds, merely of his name, his age, his home.

The petty minds of the palace clerks were reflected in their mincing appearance. They wore tunics and skirts of white, thin cloth with embroidered borders, such as a woman might take pride in. They blackened the skin beneath their eyes and wore delicate jewellery, its gold threads barely holding in the blue gems that looked so bold on Odin's helm. Why did the gods surround themselves with such petty delicacy?

'Thorvald Jorundson,' Odin boomed. 'Step forward.'

Thorvald bowed his head as he approached the Aesir. Even Odin's boots were weighty with iron, the better to trample his foes.

'My lord,' Thorvald said, 'I spoke to your messenger at Viborg market. He said that you wanted warriors, even those who had defied you, brave men to sail the sea and fight in Ragnarok.'

'And have you defied me?' The room rattled at Odin's voice. It was deep and rich, flavoured with the accent of the gods and their followers from over the sea. Thorvald's father's father had told him that, when they first arrived, the gods did not speak in the tongues of men, but only in their own lilting language. In time, as their identities were revealed, they had learned the language of their conquered subjects.

Thorvald looked up. If he was to face his god, he would do so like a man.

'When you came from over the sea, in my father's father's time, our family did not believe you were who you claimed. We went to the hills. For forty years we have ambushed your men, raided your farms, hunted your messengers.

'But we have seen the wonders you make. The great stepped temples. The roads and bridges. The stick that roars. We have seen other kin bands enslaved by them. Mighty warlords bent to your will. The isle of Britain brought to its knees, as it once was by our forefathers. We believe now that you are the Aesir, and we wish to fight for you in the final war.'

Odin's one eye twinkled, a spark of light in the shadowed pit of the helm. He rose, towering over Thorvald.

'You understand what it is you ask?' he said. 'To leave everything behind. Your homes, your lands, your possessions. Even your blades will be left here for your journey across the sea. The swords of your forefathers will be left to rust, while you take up new arms in the land where Ragnarok rages.'

Thorvald nodded his head. He had heard rumours of this, but he had heard many different rumours. Some said that those who took Odin's offer sailed off the edge of the world and into oblivion. Some said that they sailed back through time, to be reborn at the dawn of legends, spirits with no end or beginning. Some said they were nothing more than sacrifices to the gods, their blood running red down stepped temples in a land where the sun shone brighter and the forest grew greener. But these were the tales of non-believers. Thorvald had listened to them eagerly in his youth, the stories fuel to his defiance. But he was tired now and age had granted him wisdom. Only the gods could achieve the things he had seen, and if the mighty Odin called him to war then he would willingly go.

'I understand, my lord,' he said, 'and my men will follow me.'

'How many men do you lead?' Odin asked.

'Thirty,' Thorvald replied. 'Thirty-nine women and five children follow us.'

A scribe's jewellery jingled like bells as he noted the numbers. He shivered and pulled a fur closer around his shoulders. The leaves were barely brown on the trees, and already it was too much for these woeful specimens.

'Yours are brave men?' Odin asked.

'The bravest.'

Odin took a step down from the dais. He lowered Gungir and thrust the spear's tip at Thorvald. 'Place your throat to the point and swear it.'

Thorvald stepped forward. The blade pricked his skin, a trickle of blood running down his neck and into the matted furs across his chest. 'I swear it. They are the bravest, the strongest, the hardiest I have ever known.'

Odin raised the spear and placed a hand on Thorvald's shoulder. Thorvald was overwhelmed by awe.

'There is a place for you, Thorvald Jorundson,' Odin said. 'You and all your kin band. You will sail together across the sea, with your wives and children for comfort, and you will fight for me in the end time.'

Thorvald suppressed a confused frown. Why were the women and children coming? Even the eldest boy child lacked the strength to strike with a spear, and what was the point in giving comfort when they went to death or glory?

'Something bothers you?' Odin asked sternly.

'I...' Thorvald looked up at his magnificent visage, the great dragon writhing down the front of the helm, and he swallowed his doubts. 'No, my lord.'

'Very well.' Odin turned and strode away. 'My servants will tell you what to do. Good luck in what is to come, Thorvald Jorundson. I hope you find a mighty death.'

The curtain lifted and Odin disappeared behind the throne.

One of the scribes stepped forwards. His head jutted out, and Thorvald was tempted to punch it right in, to crumple his haughty glare into broken teeth and face powder. He even wore perfume, the scent of flowers cloying in the nostrils of honest men.

'Where are you staying?' the scribe asked. He had Odin's accent, but none of his gravitas.

'Harald Strongarm's guest hall,' Thorvald replied. 'By the harbour.'

There was a scratching of quill on parchment before the scribe looked up again. 'There is no boat for four days,' he said. 'Someone will come to inform you of the details.'

Without the least gesture of respect the servant turned and disappeared around the throne. Thorvald glared after his reflection in the mirror. Such spindly limbs, so easy to break. They could barely lift the curtain behind Odin's seat. Why, Thorvald wondered, did the gods of legend use such pitiful men?

Another servant held the hanging open for the scribe, and they paused to exchange some inanity in their strange language. As they did so, Thorvald saw past them into the chamber behind the throne.

Odin stood reflected in the mirror, out of his boots, a full foot shorter than he had seemed. His fur cloak fell from one skinny shoulder, a wad of padding visible between them. Assisted by two servants, he lifted the great helm from his head, his long, manly beard coming away with it to reveal a smooth, effeminate face, the skin around his eye darkened, fragile rings of turqoise and gold dangling from his ear. Gungir lay abandoned on the ground, a servant treading on it as he passed with a tray of drinks.

Shock and confusion roiled through Thorvald's mind. What was he seeing? Where was the mighty Odin of legend? Was his appearance merely a trick? He knew the arrival of the gods had not been as his forefathers had expected. Their boats were strange, their customs alien, their servants not real warriors but sorcerers who killed from afar and closed for the fight only when they were forced. Everything they had done since to earn men's trust, the shows of strength and signs of honour, was it all a lie?

But the father of the gods was meant to be cunning as well as strong. Maybe he had chosen this illusion to bring his people together. A clever ruse to overcome the strangeness that came with divinity. Yes, thought Thorvald, that must be it.

But the thought did not sit easy in his heart. He turned, and each footfall stretched out like an hour as the sound of his boots echoed back at him. He watched the guards who lined the hall. They looked small, complacent, dressed not in armour but in coloured tunics, bright white with a blue trim. He could kill them all with his hands, the hands that clenched and unclenched at his sides, if not for the sticks that roared, that killed from a league away. Each guard had a stick at his shoulder, and a shorter one at his side. Was this really Odin's way, for his warriors to slay with such magics, rather than with true might?

He reached the door. The priest was by his altar in the porch, the weapons piled upon it. He sniffed as Thorvald approached, looked out across the city, smoke rising from a thousand chimneys, pigs and children squeeling in the streets.

'My sword,' Thorvald said.

'You won't need that old thing,' the priest said. 'Odin will arm you for your journey.'

Thorvald hesitated, looking at the priest's narrow, rat-like face.

'Does Odin always appear like this?' he asked.

The priest frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'So tall and strong. So powerful.'

'Of course. He is Odin.' The priest shook his head. 'Now hurry on. There are other supplicants waiting.'

As he trudged through the city, boots thick with street mud and sewage, Thorvald turned the audience over in his mind, seeking to understand what he had seen. Odin had judged him on the things that mattered, on his strength and prowess in battle. To feel the tip of Gungir at his throat, to gaze into that one eye and feel his life in the balance, it had filled Thorvald with fear and honour. He had been judged by a god, and been found worthy, as he had hoped.

But how had he been judged? He had not been challenged to combat, by Odin or any of his guards. He had not told the tales of his glories, described the battles won and lost, the enemies defeated, the prizes taken. He had not even shown his scars. How did Odin know that he was worthy? The Aesir was wise, his one eye all seeing. Could he see into Thorvald's past, or pierce the depths of his heart to find out what lay there?

One eye. He had only seen one side of Odin's face as the curtain was pulled back, and so had only seen that one eye. Something about it had not seemed right, but was that just his doubts tricking him? There was no time for doubt in battle, no space for it in a warrior's heart. Thorvald pushed the feeling back down and strode on through the city.

The crowds parted before him like a smooth sea before a longship's prow, scurrying away from the burly, scarred veteran. Locals or travellers, Norsemen and foreigners, minions of the gods and their halfbreed spawn, all stepped out of his way, fleeing the sight of his scowl. Some wore the plain clothes of honest travellers, others the patterned cloth and feathered trims of the foreigners, their bright colours matching the painted stone of the Aesir's buildings. The layered barracks, rising in steps half the height of a man, the raised platforms of public granaries, even Odin's hall itself, a tall jagged pyramid amidst the hunched hovels of the locals.

He took a long route back to Harald Strongarm's guest hall, past the market place with its bustle and chatter and down towards the sea. There he stood a while at the docks, watching the ships loading and unloading. Some were being filled with copper and tin from the mountain mines. Others with sheep and wool from the hills, or cloth dyed pink or pale blue. But many carried men. One of the vessels of the gods had just arrived, fresh from its journey across the ocean. Soldiers marched down its plank, shivering in their flimsy tunics, looking around them with wide eyed wonder. They stared at the paleness of the natives, at the crude Norse clothing, at the wattle and daub huts that lined the older parts of the docks. Some of them stared at Thorvald, but he kept his anger in check. He knew that he was a fearsome and fascinating sight, and had no need to challenge them in their insolence, these men who carried the death sticks, men with strange customs and stranger names like those he had met in Viborg - Tecocoitzin and Acacitli, Centehua and Uacalxochitl.

Men were boarding ships as well. One was being loaded with slaves - men, women and children captured in war or bought from Frankish traders. They tramped up the boarding plank in chains, heads hanging in shame and misery, their clothes little more than rags, bones showing through their wasting flesh. Another vessel was being boarded by a band of warriors, brave men with their heads held high, muscled and scarred, their clothes simple but well kept, many of them wrapped in furs. They were followed by their kin, women leading young children up the plank and onto the creaking deck. The men boarding the ships could not have been more different. Yet the two ships were all but identical. The same hulls, the same masts, even the same flags snapping in the breeze, a pennant carrying the angular image of a winged snake. The glorious warriors heading for Ragnarok travelled the same way as the bedraggled slaves.

More people travelled these days, and a warrior could not rely on finding hospitallity in the hall of a local lord, earning a night by the fire with the news he carried and the stories he could tell. Those warlords had given way to the gods and their ever-distant servants, and guest halls like Harald Strong-arm's were now a weary traveller's best hope. These guest halls took in anyone, but they did it at a price. Olaf, Thorvald's brother and second in command, had been shocked when Harald told them that they must pay to stay. It had been all Thorvald could do to stop Olaf punching Harald and starting a fight with his armoured guards. Now Olaf skulked in the shadows at the edge of the hall, watching the others as they sat by the fire and bought ale with their dwindling stores of gold.

Thorvald pulled a stool over and settled down beside Olaf. They sat for a while in silence, watching Old Sven tell the tale of how he had lost his finger and gained a herd of cattle. Sven was growing grey, and the story grew longer with each telling, but Thorvald still remembered how well they had eaten that winter, and how well his father had respected Sven.

'I was granted an audience with Odin,' Thorvald said at last, watching Sven down a horn of ale as he reached the climax of his story. 'We leave across the ocean in four days.'

Olaf almost smiled as he looked at his brother. 'This is good,' he said. 'There is no honour here any more. No glory to be had, no spoils to be taken. We will go to fight, that the world can be born anew.'

Thorvald nodded. He wanted to be able to share his brother's pleasure, his sense of anticipation at what was to come. But he couldn't shake the image of warriors and slaves marching to the same fate, or of the thin, alien Odin he had seen revealed in the mirror. He touched the scar that ran down the left side of his face, a memento of his most closely fought and best celebrated battle. Had he dodged an inch the other way the Norwegian raider would have taken his eye, maybe more. Instead the man had met his own end, his blood spilled crimson across white sands, his boat in flames. No-one had escaped them that day, and even with his face sliced open Thorvald had walked away with pride.

'You and Odin, you nearly had much in common,' Olaf said. 'Which eye is he missing?'

'The left,' Thorvald said.

'How does it look? As scarred and ugly as you?'

Thorvald shook his head. 'It was hidden by his helm.'

Olaf nodded. 'The gods go ever ready for war.'

Thorvald looked him in the eye. 'What would you say if I said he was not as I expected? That the gods, underneath it all, look not like warriors but servants and clerks?'

Olaf laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. 'I would say that you are a funny man. The world has become so weak I can almost believe it.'

Thorvald looked away. Night was falling outside, but the hall was brightly lit, the fire reflecting off a mirror that hung between the beer barrels. It was not as highly polished as Odin's, the image it reflected warped and dirty, but it cast light back across the room. Thorvald stood and went to face the mirror, staring at his reflection. Was it one of his other selves that stared back, a Thorvald from another life, a wiser Thorvald, a stronger Thorvald? He raised his left hand to his scar, running the finger down puckered flesh and time-hardened skin. In the mirror, his other self raised its right hand in the same slow, sad gesture. This much, at least, they shared.

Thorvald stood at the base of Odin's palace, looking up at the grand edifice, its layers of yellow-grey stone like a giant's staircase rising towards the sky. Each layer was half the height of a man, and ascending them would have been an undignified task if not for the steps that ran up the front, flanked by angular carvings of men and beasts. At the summit, above the hall's main entrance, a pair of altars were flanked by flag poles, banners flying the Aesir's sign of the world snake.

In the courtyard before the palace the ball game was being played, Odin's soldiers facing off against a band of half castes and servants. Thorvald had seen the game once before, in a town they had passed through on the road, where the Asgardians kept a fort and a temple. The teams had played for an hour or more, throwing the ball back and forth, running with it up the court, bouncing it off the wooden walls of their arena. Afterwards, Thorvald had handled the ball, felt its strange texture, firm yet yielding. He had thrown it against the wall himself, astounded by the way it bounced, the force with which it flew back at him. The players had laughed at his amazement, used to the wonders the gods brought.

Here, the stakes of the game were higher. The leader of the winning team, the priest had explained, would ascend to Odin's chamber and be granted fine jewels for honouring the gods. The loser would be led to the top of the temple when the sun was at its height, his blood flowing down the sides in sacrifice. Rust brown stains showed where other players' blood had poured from the summit. It seemed a waste of good men to Thorvald, and a fool way to die, but there were still men eager to take their place in the game, for their glory and that of the gods.

Thorvald walked slowly up the steps, approaching the priest at his altar, the guardian of the doorway to divinity. The priest's face screwed up into a web of wrinkles, turning into a deeper frown as Thorvald came within the range of his failing vision.

'I know you,' the priest said. 'You were here three days ago.'

Thorvald nodded. 'I have a question for Odin,' he said.

The priest's laughter was the croaking of a crow. 'You do not simply walk up and ask the all father questions,' he said. 'You have had your turn.'

Thorvald scowled. He was not surprised. No god should be so idle that they sat waiting for him, but this setback did nothing to quell his inner turmoil. 'Maybe you can answer then,' he said. 'Are priests not the mouthpiece of the gods?'

'We do have insight greater than most, due to our enlightened position. ' The priest puffed out his chest, running a hand across the top of the altar. 'Go on, what's your question?'

Thorvald pointed up the temple steps, to the dark stain at the top. 'Does this happen to all those who strive for the gods but fail?'

'Oh yes,' the priest said. 'There is no place for failures in Valhalla.'

'So those who could never succeed, the weak and the useless? Are they sacrificed as well?'

'Men are needed to build and work the land,' the priest said. 'If all but the greatest were sacrificed, who would do that? No, only a proportion of the poor, a few hundred, are sacrificed, at the appropriate festivals.'

Thorvald nodded. There had always been sacrifices. His grandfather had told him how, even before the Aesir arrived, sacrifices had been made to them at the beginning of summer, and at times of great change. Blood spilt to gain the gods' favour, some dying that others might live.

'There is not much blood for hundreds of people,' he said, still looking up the temple.

'It happens elsewhere,' the priest replied.

'Across the ocean?'

'Yes. In Valhalla.' The priest had trouble with the word, its hard edges softened by his smoothly lilting tongue. 'It is... closer to the gods.'

'So the slaves boarding the ships, they will be sacrificed?'

'You are a clever man, I can see that. There's no getting past you. Yes, the slaves are to be sacrificed, but we do not tell them this before they board the boats. It makes them more...' He paused to find the word. 'More cooperative.'

Thorvald nodded. 'And those boarding the other boats?'

'The other boats?'

'The boats I and my men will board, to cross the ocean for Ragnarok?'

'Oh!' The priest's laughter was different this time, high and womanish. 'Well, those ships go to a different place, where you will be armed and sent to fight. Of course. But excuse me now, I see other supplicants coming.'

'Wait.' Thorvald grabbed the priest's arm, squeezing tight the nut brown flesh. 'How will I know I am getting on the right ship?'

'Because Odin sent you,' the priest said. 'And who could doubt the word of Odin?'

Thorvald skulked at the edge of the hall, shrouding himself in shadows. The others sat around the fire, drinking and eating their fill, one last raucous night before they boarded the boat to destiny. Even Olaf joined in the laughter, happy now that action was near, now that he had the prospect of violence.

A hunched figure wobbled out of the firelight, a ramshackle silhouette tottering on legs made uncertain by age and mead. Old Sven, Sven the Scabbed as the men called him, came to sit beside Thorvald. Sven was the oldest of the kin band. His days as a warrior were near their end even when Thorvald was a child, and yet the thread of his life wound on, while men younger than him went screaming into the darkness. He had taken more wounds and survived more diseases than any man Thorvald had ever met. His muscles had withered away, and his hair fallen out leaving straggly grey whisps, yet still he lived on.

'Chief!' The word whistled through the gaps between Sven's remaining teeth. 'S'not good, you sitting out here on your own. C'mon and drink with us!' The old man slumped onto the bench beside Thorvald, tried to drape a companionable arm across his shoulders, and almost slid to the floor.

'Do you remember when the gods came?' Thorvald asked.

Sven nodded. 'I was young.' He contemplated the end of his own waggling finger, came to a conclusion. 'The ships. And the death sticks. People said they must be gods. We didn't believe them. More fool us!'

'Did you see Odin?' Thorvald asked.

Sven snorted. 'Wasn't called Odin then,' he said. 'Or was, but not in their words. Moctezuma, they called him. Before they learned our names for them.' He raised his contemplative finger again. 'What sort of name's that? Moctezuma?'

'Did you see him?' Thorvald asked.

'Your grandfather did.' Sven shook his head. 'Said he just looked like a man. A funny skinned little man.'

'When I saw him in his hall, he was grand and tall, in furs and armour,' Thorvald said. 'He was everything a god should be, proud and strong. But then, I thought I saw him for a moment, his reflection in a mirror as he disrobed, and he was as you describe, nothing more than these other foreign men, fragile and effeminate.'

Sven's face piled wrinkles on wrinkles, a thoughtful frown further crumpling his skin. 'You think there is a trick here? That he is not Odin?'

Thorvald shrugged. 'Maybe Odin has good reason to present himself as other than he is. There are many stories of the gods using trickery.'

'One god more than others,' Sven said. 'Not all of the Aesir are mighty warriors. There is another...'

'You think he is Loki?' Thorvald glanced around as he spoke the name. It was said that naming Loki, in the wrong time and the wrong place, could summon him from the shadows. 'That he did all this?'

'Maybe. Whoever these people are, they are not of our world. But that does not mean they are who they say they are.'

Thorvald stared at the men laughing around the fire. Was he about to lead them into the trickster god's trap? To doom his kin? To destroy his honour?

'Why would he,' Thorvald avoided Loki's name, 'want us?'

'Why does any god want sacrifices? For his own honour and his own power.'

Sven passed his tankard to Thorvald, who took a long drink from it. The ale was watery and poorly brewed, but it soothed his throat and stoked the fire in his belly.

'What can I do?' he asked.

'Nothing.' Sven took back the tankard, drained what was left. 'You cannot defy Odin. Unless you're sure it is not him, better do as he says. I've seen many things in my life, but I know this. There's more dishonour in disobeying a rightful lord than in being tricked by a wily god.'

Thorvald stood between Harald Strongarm's ale barrels, staring at his other self in the grimy mirror. By the last flickerings of that night's fire he could see his face, a patchwork of shadows and light that shifted as a breeze toyed with the fire. Most of his men were sleeping now, ready for their great journey in the morning. A few still talked around the fire, telling hushed stories of their adventures. Their forefathers had raided across the sea, fought with axe and sword to claim a piece of fertile land. Now they were leaving, travelling to their own fight. To Ragnarok.

Or to a pitiful death, sacrificed on the trickster's altar.

Thorvald ran a finger down his scarred cheek. What would he face in that final battle at the end of the world? Ice giants who could crush him as easily as he squashed an ant? Dire wolves of fire and fury that that would rip him assunder with a flick of their claws? Warriors more mighty than any man he had met, strong as bears and swift as swallows? Was this what was worrying him? Was his search for a trick nothing more than a coward's way out, an excuse not to face a certain death?

The right hand of the mirror Thorvald caressed its scar, lost in its own thoughts.

The right hand.

A scar on his right cheek, though he was injured on the left.

The Odin he had seen in the hall still had his right eye, and so did the Odin in the mirror. But if the mirror Odin had his right eye, the figure he reflected had his left.

The Aesir in the hall had two eyes.

'Up!' Thorvald roared.

His men rose in an instant. They had slept many nights with one eye open, watchful for their enemies. That instinct was strong. Even the groggiest put his hand straight to his sword.

'We have been tricked,' he hissed. 'It is not Odin who asks us to board his ship. It is the deceiver.'

No-one questioned him. The same instinct to follow their leader, the honour that had nearly doomed them all, led them to follow him now, as Thorvald grabbed a burning brand from the fire, took a knife in place of his abandoned sword, and stormed out into the pre-dawn street.

The city blazed behind them as they ran into the wooded hills. Thorvald could hear the crackle of ships smouldering at their docks, and the rattle of the death sticks as Loki's soldiers pursued him and his men, trying to pick them off by the weak light of the rising sun. His band was smaller than an hour before. Some women and children had been too slow, and Sven had turned at the city gate, holding up the soldiers while the others escaped. One last act of heroism from an old drunk. They would tell his tale down the generations, the grey haired ancient who dared to defy the gods.

But the tales were not over. They would not rest, Thorvald swore. They would bring fire and bloodshed to this land, until Loki was driven back into the sea, every last invader butchered or drowned. He swore it by the blood in his veins, by the beating of his heart, by the thrill that filled him as they ran, to freedom and a new dawn. Theirs would be tales to last until the true Ragnarok.

They would live free, or they would die trying. And this Thorvald, this one out of the thousands that could have been, he was determined to live.

Andrew Knighton lives and occasionally writes in Stockport, England, turning his respectable history degrees into the far more entertaining form of short stories. When not working in his standard issue office job he battles the slugs threatening to overrun his garden and the monsters lurking in the woods. He's had over forty stories published in places such as Murky Depths, Redstone SF and the Steampunk Reloaded and Steamunk Revolution anthologies. You can find out more about his writing atandrewknighton.wordpress.com

Editor

Curtis Ellett is a frustrated fantasy writer and a founding member of the 196 Southshore Writers' Group. He has lived on three continents, studied archaeology and worked as a newspaper ad designer and a bookseller. He now gets paid to write. Find him on Twitter @CurtisEllett.